Monday, 6 January 2014

Stewart Brand - How Buildings Learn

This six-part, three-hour, BBC TV series aired in 1997. Stewart Brand presented and co-wrote the series; it was directed by James Muncie, with music by Brian Eno.

The series was based on Stewart Brand's 1994 book, How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built. The book is still selling well and is used as a text in some college courses. Most of the reviews on Amazon treat it as a book about system and software design, which tells us that architects are not as alert as computer people. But Stewart knew that; that’s part of why he wrote the book.

Historic note: this was one of the first television productions made entirely in digital--- shot digital, edited digital. The project wound up with not enough money, so digital was the workaround. The camera was so small that we seldom had to ask permission to shoot; everybody thought we were tourists. No film or sound crew. Everything technical on site was done by editors, writers, directors. That’s why the sound is a little sketchy, but there’s also some direct perception in the filming that is unusual.